Deep Concerns: Telephone calls from "Windows Tech Support" over four months

[code65536]

Do people still get scam calls to their cellphone? I feel like ever since people stopped using home phones these calls have reduced.

Why would that make a difference? A number is a number is a number. Scammers don't check to see what kind of device a number corresponds to.

I suspect that, in the early days, scammers may have been going by phone book listings, which don't include cell phones. But these days, they probably just try numbers sequentially (at least the automated bots do). And yes, I've gotten plenty of crap on my cell phone.

 

[Markbnj]

I feel humbled in the forums sometimes. If you tell me you want to "toy" with the scammers, or set up some black-hole like a Win 3.1 VM, I'd say to myself "Gawd! That's clever!" But then, I'd tell myself "I don't have time for this boolsheet!"

There was a movie maybe a decade ago -- "The Score" -- featuring Brando, deNiro, Edward Norton. It included a minor character punk-geek who lived in his mom's basement, whose expertise the thieves required to hack into the Toronto Customs House. I'm too damn old, too damn tired, too burned out to fit that profile. . . .

You don't need to waste time on any of this. As has been said, it's a scam pure and simple. Nobody legitimate will ever call you about errors on your PC. With that in mind you can handle the calls however you wish, but if time is short then just hang up .

 

[postmortemIA]

Why would that make a difference? A number is a number is a number. Scammers don't check to see what kind of device a number corresponds to.

I suspect that, in the early days, scammers may have been going by phone book listings, which don't include cell phones. But these days, they probably just try numbers sequentially (at least the automated bots do). And yes, I've gotten plenty of crap on my cell phone.

It makes difference for a few reasons:
1. International calls to landlines are much cheaper than to cell phones
2. Person called is at home, next to a pc
3. person is called, not a company
4. Person is not technologically apt. Otherwise they would have only cell phone.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I wish I could get these calls,..

Yeah, me too. I'm getting the "IRS scam" calls to my cell phone but I always miss them and they stopped leaving voicemails. I can't wait to actually answer one of them.

 

[ahenkel]

Yea grandma fell for this hard even gave them her debit card number.

 

[amdhunter]

I get called from an Indian guy saying he is from the IRS and suing me. I had this jackass on the phone twice and had him drooling when I said to give me his address so I could send him a check for $5400.

He called for days asking for his check before I got bored and blocked him on GV.

 

[lxskllr]

Yea grandma fell for this hard even gave them her debit card number.

My mother was on the hook, but they lost the catch since she isn't running Windows :^)

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I get called from an Indian guy saying he is from the IRS and suing me. I had this jackass on the phone twice and had him drooling when I said to give me his address so I could send him a check for $5400.

He called for days asking for his check before I got bored and blocked him on GV.

That's the same one calling me. He left a voicemail twice that I could BARELY understand due to his thick accent and a huge amount of background noise. All I could make out was "IRS," "you owe taxes," and "contact us IMMEDIATELY." Are people really so dumb they fall for that shit?

 

[AznAnarchy99]

That's the same one calling me. He left a voicemail twice that I could BARELY understand due to his thick accent and a huge amount of background noise. All I could make out was "IRS," "you owe taxes," and "contact us IMMEDIATELY." Are people really so dumb they fall for that shit?

Yeah. People who don't understand english well are big targets too. Hell even at my work we get fake invoices in the mail with super tiny print saying that this is just an offer.

 

[mmntech]

Surprised there are still people out there that haven't heard of this scam. The cops have been warning about it for a few years. Problem is it's very difficult to prosecute. That's why they employ boiler room call centres in India.

I have call display so I just let the machine pick up if it's a number I don't recognize. They rarely bother leaving a message. Fortunately my grandparents are still all there, and not dumb enough to fall for these scams.

 

[DaTT]

I absolutely LOVE fucking with these asshats. If I have nothing better to do, I waste as much of their time as possible. The call usually ends with him calling me a mutherfucker.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

One of my grandmas trolled one of these shitheads once. She kept him on the phone talking for a few minutes before telling him she didn't even have a computer and hung up.

 

[Puppies04]

They called my sisters mother in law and got her to part with £150, luckily it was on her CC and payment was stopped.

They called my mother last week, she had the sense to ask for a number to call them back when I was there. They said it had to be sorted right away and she eventually hung up on them.

BTW if you want to waste some time and mess with these douchbags then do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZa0gJirPeU .

DO NOT GO TO ANY WEBSITE THEY TELL YOU TOO
DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY INFORMATION (IP ADDRESS ETC)

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hope they call me. I am ready for their call. I still need to add more spyware though. Once in a while if I'm bored I go mess around on that VM trying to find ways to get infected. Harder than I thought TBH. All of this stuff I actually had to install myself. It seems drive bys are hard to get when you actually want them.



Had them call me before but I was in no position to mess with them so I just told them my computer wont turn on and messed around a little but they hang up as soon as you tell them that your computer is not on or that you're not at your computer.

Funny thing with this scam is it does not even benefit them. I figured they would eventually ask for your CC# or put spyware on your machine that will gather your info or what not, but it's not even that, they get you to type something in command prompt to "fix" your computer but it actually disables your mouse and keyboard then they laugh at you and hang up. Totally pointless lol. Someone I know messed around with them and that's basically what they did lol. I'm kind of curious to see what will happen if they do that in a VM.

 

[Puppies04]

I hope they call me. I am ready for their call. I still need to add more spyware though. Once in a while if I'm bored I go mess around on that VM trying to find ways to get infected. Harder than I thought TBH. All of this stuff I actually had to install myself. It seems drive bys are hard to get when you actually want them.



Had them call me before but I was in no position to mess with them so I just told them my computer wont turn on and messed around a little but they hang up as soon as you tell them that your computer is not on or that you're not at your computer.

Funny thing with this scam is it does not even benefit them. I figured they would eventually ask for your CC# or put spyware on your machine that will gather your info or what not, but it's not even that, they get you to type something in command prompt to "fix" your computer but it actually disables your mouse and keyboard then they laugh at you and hang up. Totally pointless lol. Someone I know messed around with them and that's basically what they did lol. I'm kind of curious to see what will happen if they do that in a VM.

All the ones i have heard (in real life) about end with them getting you to pay them money to "fix" your computer in the meantime they direct you to a webiste which infects you with tons of spyware/viruses and lets them remote into your desktop which adds an air of authenticity to the whole "we are microsoft" idea for anyone who doesn't know about computers.

Anyone who laughs and hangs up is probably someone you know being a jackass.

 

[Red Squirrel]

All the ones i have heard (in real life) about end with them getting you to pay them money to "fix" your computer in the meantime they direct you to a webiste which infects you with tons of spyware/viruses and lets them remote into your desktop which adds an air of authenticity to the whole "we are microsoft" idea for anyone who doesn't know about computers.

Anyone who laughs and hangs up is probably someone you know being a jackass.

There might be different ones going on then since that's what I figured too, but someone was telling me of this one group from Turkey that just messes up your computer for no reason. Actually reminds me of one prank the Jerky Boys did. They got some poor lady to deltree /y *.* her computer LOL.

 

[Ichinisan]

I don't know why (for the sake of awareness) we can't post the scammers' sites.

Anyway, it's a really common scam. The funny thing is these folks are working with a check list and might actually think they're working for Microsoft!

 

[YBS1]

I absolutely LOVE fucking with these asshats. If I have nothing better to do, I waste as much of their time as possible. The call usually ends with him calling me a mutherfucker.

Lol, that exact same thing happened to me the only time I ever received one of these calls. I wasted a good ten minutes of his time.... He was hot.

 

[Ichinisan]

My! My-oh-my! You have such an adventuresome spirit!

For two decades, I thought I was on the "vanguard" of utilizing this technology -- in a large institution, teaching it to college students on the "software" side of the equation, and in my personal applications.

After I had friends who needed my help in purging their systems from malware, Trojans -- viruses -- I became more and more cautious. Before I got around to creating a Facebook account, I heard more bad stories pertaining to that phenomenon, and swore off creating a Facebook account. I'm careful with my credit-card usage; very few resellers have my card info.

IF "THOSE PEOPLE" are scammers, what is the purpose and objective of their scam? What would they do, if I had "let the gremlins in the door," so to speak?

Once they have their remote assistance software installed, they show you scary-sounding (but normal) entries in the Windows event logs. Then they load a web page selling a bogus software product to fix the issues and coach the victim through purchasing the software with a credit card.

I've talked to multiple people who have fallen for it. I tell them they can't trust that the scammer won't wait a while and add some more charges to the card...so they should also replace the card.

 

[code65536]

You know what would be really funny?

Put the following text in a place that they will discover; e.g., in an open word processor window (many remote login programs don't display the wallpaper, so it likely won't work there):

"I know that this is a scam. Thank you for connecting. Now I have your IP address, which I will be sending to law enforcement."

Watch how they react when they log in. :awe:

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, folks, I haven't the slightest idea why my land-line was consistently chosen.

I think this started in January or February. It coincided with a time just before I discovered a bad RAM stick, which in turn generated Event Log errors and warnings. The computer had only basic business software installed, so I found the bad stick, sent it off for RMA replacement, reinstalled the OS and the software.

But I was vulnerable, just for my imagination, when my experience and common sense told me that MS doesn't just call you out of the blue.

Someone used the term "techno-ramus." I'm not supposed to be so "easy." But the phone calls had been coming since the early months -- some ten of them. I had hung up every time. For Gawd-sake! All my event logs are "blue!"

There are apparently several gangs perpetrating the scam. In this particular case -- the call I received today -- they want you to install "TeamViewer 9." I've had neither the time nor the energy to research the scam on the web, or TeamViewer. And that sort of research is the sort of thing I usually do -- quickly -- efficiently. So this has been a humbling experience. Devastatingly humbling.

TeamViewer is legitimate software -- freeware. It's sometimes used in corporate environments to allow remote access from one computer to another. As I said, when I got to the point of choosing "Decline" or "Accept," I saved us. What can I say? I hadn't had my morning coffee -- my brain vitamins! And maybe it's "old-age" -- as someone said, the most vulnerable would be elderly people who are still uncomfortable with computers, Windows, keyboards -- cyber-space.

Of course, I may be getting old, but I was installing a hard disk in my PC back in 1984. I've really lost my edge! ONce -- I HAD an edge!

 

[Ichinisan]

You know what would be really funny?

Put the following text in a place that they will discover; e.g., in an open word processor window (many remote login programs don't display the wallpaper, so it likely won't work there):

"I know that this is a scam. Thank you for connecting. Now I have your IP address, which I will be sending to law enforcement."

Watch how they react when they log in. :awe:

They're in another country and don't care one little bit.

 

[rise]

Consult with muse immediately.

 

[John Connor]

I've had this crap. I use a netbook connected to a USB dial-up modem that understands caller ID. I then run a piece of software called Phone Tray. It's $30 but well worth it. When telemarketers call or numbers I put in the block list I just hear one ring and the software hangs up on them.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've had this crap. I use a netbook connected to a USB dial-up modem that understands caller ID. I then run a piece of software called Phone Tray. It's $30 but well worth it. When telemarketers call or numbers I put in the block list I just hear one ring and the software hangs up on them.

That sounds like fun. Even more fun would be if you had it so it sends them to an IVR with tons of options that make no sense that just brings them in a loop, and records the whole process.

"Thank you for calling our residence. You now have 9 options to choose from. Please listen carefully as our menus have changed. Please note that your call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.

If you would like to inquire about our next yard sale, press 1.
If you would like to speak to one of the kids, press 2
If you would like to speak to an adult, press 3
To repeat these options, press 4
to continue with the rest of the options, press 5
....

And have all those options have even more options. Make 0 go to Siri.

I need to setup an Asterisk box one day and mess with this.